The smell reached him before the sight did.
Smoke. Thick, acrid, and heavy with the stench of burning flesh.
Thaddeus broke through the treeline, boots crunching over frozen mud, and the breath caught in his throat. The village below wasn't standing anymore. It was dying — burning from the inside out.
Flames ate through thatch roofs and wooden walls. The air shimmered under waves of heat. Black smoke rolled into the sky, dragging ash with it like snow falling in reverse. Every breath felt wrong, the air too hot to breathe, too cruel to swallow.
He staggered downhill, one hand covering his mouth. The closer he got, the worse it became.
Where there had once been the hum of life — children's laughter, haggling voices, the hammering of the blacksmith — now there was only the sound of crackling fire and collapsing timber. He passed a house he recognized.
A family of three had lived there — quiet people, good people. The walls were gone now, only a frame left standing, and in the center of what used to be the main room lay a small shape half-buried in ash.
Thaddeus crouched down. His fingers brushed something warm and warped.
A slingshot.
The wood was blackened, the band still stretched tight as if waiting for its next stone. He remembered the boy who carried it — grinning, always trying to hit birds but never fast enough.
The slingshot's owner would never miss again.
Thaddeus swallowed hard, jaw tightening. He rose and kept walking, eyes burning from smoke and something else he couldn't name.
The village leader's hall loomed ahead, a skeleton of fire and stone. The tall windows were shattered, their edges jagged like teeth. Flames licked through the doorway, roaring as the roof gave way with a deafening crash.
That was when it sank in — this wasn't bandits or accident. This was systematic. Deliberate. A purge.
And there was only one group cruel enough to do it.
The Obsidian Knights.
Thaddeus's heart pounded like a war drum. He'd seen their work before — villages turned to pyres, people branded or sold, everything reduced to ash and silence.
They had come for him. Again.
His fingers curled into fists so tight his knuckles cracked.
Then something slammed into his back.
He hit the ground hard, skidding through the ash. The air shot from his lungs. When he rolled over, a figure was already on top of him — face smeared with blood, eyes red and wide. Ty.
"You!" he shouted, grabbing Thaddeus by the collar. "This is your fault!"
Thaddeus blinked, disoriented. "Ty—?"
"Don't say my name!" Ty's voice cracked. "Gwen's dead! The old man's gone! All of it—" he shook him violently, tears cutting clean lines through the soot, "—because you couldn't just go quietly!"
Thaddeus stared up at him, shock bleeding into rage.
Ty was trembling, half-mad with grief. The cut on his cheek still bled, and there was no reason left in his eyes — only loss.
"Let go," Thaddeus said quietly.
But Ty didn't.
He swung. The punch landed hard, splitting Thaddeus's lip. The next hit never connected.
Thaddeus's instincts — the same ones that had kept him alive in the slums — took over. He twisted, slamming his knee into Ty's stomach. The boy gasped, folding forward. Thaddeus rolled them both, pinning Ty beneath him. His breath came in sharp bursts, chest heaving.
"You think I wanted this?" he hissed. "You think I asked for any of it?"
Ty snarled. "You brought them here!"
Before Thaddeus could respond, the world froze.
A sound pierced the air — long, low, and wrong. A whistle, cold enough to still their blood.
It cut through the smoke like the cry of something inhuman.
Both boys turned toward the noise.
Out of the firelight, five silhouettes emerged. Four carried spears. One carried a cleaved blade longer than Thaddeus's arm. His armor was black and ridged, edges glowing faintly orange from heat. The fire didn't burn him — it followed him, bending around his form like a servant.
The Slaver.
Thaddeus's heart sank. The same man who had chained him once — who had stolen his freedom — now stood only a few paces away, his pale face split by a half-healed scar and an empty stare.
"Been a long time, boy," the man rasped. His voice was low and gravelly, as if the fire itself spoke.
He raised his arm and threw something.
It rolled across the dirt and stopped between them.
A head. Gwen's head.
Her eyes were open, mouth slack, hair singed and matted with blood.
Ty's scream tore through the village like a blade. He crawled to her, hands shaking so violently he could barely touch her face. "No… no, no, no!"
Thaddeus couldn't move. He wanted to, but every muscle in his body was locked.
The Slaver chuckled — a low, cruel sound that made the ground feel smaller.
Ty reached beside Gwen's head and grabbed something from the ground — the boy's slingshot. His grip tightened around it, fury drowning his grief.
He loaded a rock. Pulled back. Fired.
The pebble struck the Slaver's chest with a dull thunk. Then another. And another.
They did nothing.
The man took a slow step forward, amused. "Brave little rat," he said softly. "Maybe I can sell you too. A young dormant like you's worth coin."
Ty spat blood in his face.
The Slaver's expression didn't change. He lifted the boy with one hand by the neck, then brought him crashing down onto the ground. The crack that followed silenced everything.
Thaddeus didn't think. He just ran.
He tore through the ruins, past the flames, past the smoldering remains of everything that once meant safety. His lungs screamed for air, his body for rest — but his mind wouldn't stop.
He didn't dare look back.
Ty's last words echoed behind him, broken and furious —
"You won't get away, Thaddeus!"
He didn't know if Ty was still alive. He didn't want to know.
He ran until the smoke thinned and the snow returned, until the mountains loomed like giants against the sky. His legs buckled, but he caught himself on the rocks. The wind bit his face.
He looked back once — saw the village below, nothing but embers now.
Everything gone. Again.
He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart.
"I thought I was done being hunted," he whispered. "Thought I could build something new."
The wind didn't answer.
He closed his eyes.
"Guess that was a lie too."
Then he started to climb — up the mountain, into the cold, into whatever waited beyond the smoke. Because there was nothing left below.
Only ash. Only blood. Only chains.
And Thaddeus swore he would break them — even if it meant burning the whole world to do it.